Truth be told, for a few days now, I've been contemplating quitting art. Why? Put plainly, I have dyspraxia - a disability that affects fine motor skills and balance (and many other things) - and so, my arm hasn't necessarily been able to do as commanded. This demoralised me, as my nitpicking when it came to the art I produced was unable to be corrected. Is this a skill issue? Perhaps, as I'm slowly trying to discern.
As the title indicates, things are beginning to look up though. A friend of mine - https://inkbunny.net/JUANONYX - has been helping me improve my art. Whilst I clearly have a long way to go, my most recent drawing has turned out how I wanted it to. I won't be uploading it here, it's a drawing of Samus Aran that - whilst non-sexual - is also lifted from Super Metroid's Japanese box art (by this I mean I tried to replicate the drawing on that box as closely as possible, so it is essentially tracing). Despite this, whilst I am awful at breaking down humans, armour is a lot easier to break down. I cannot draw faces to save a life right now, and I want to learn how to move from not only heavily referencing to drawing from the mind, but also from mimicking a style to slowly developing my own.
It's become obvious that Eric Schwartz's style is not for me, not right now anyway, and that's ok, right? I tend to get so worked up from idolising specific artists that it gets difficult for me to even think of experimenting with proportions or design. Even now, I struggle to do anything truly unique, stylistically speaking, because my mind just doesn't work like that - I need some sort of reference to go off of to know how things "should" look. However, I will say that this will be a slow process, not only because I have to essentially shift my whole perspective on art in general, but also stop putting people on pedestals (as I often do).
Worst case scenario? I focus on writing. I am decent enough at humour and describing things, I guess I could be the Stan Lee to someone else's Steve Buscema. But this is the absolute worst case scenario, and not something I like to ever consider doing (partially out of pride and partially out of the sunken cost fallacy). I would hate to have to give up another hobby due to stress, so I suppose this is just as much a mental health journey as it is an artistic one.
I may write some poetry from time to time, just so you guys have something to look at in the meantime, and I do apologise if my output becomes very very slow. Know that it is not due to laziness, but rather because I do not see it as realistic to maintain my usual output and do what I have set out to do.
